The North Star
by mypiratecat1
Summary: Sweet one shot.  Jack tries to teach Little Will Turner how to navigate using the stars, and the conversation goes astray, a bit.


_**Disclaimer: **Not mine, never will be, but don't tell if I borrow them and don't give them back._

_**Author's note: **In my fics, of course, Will is no longer the captain of the Dutchman, and is an advisor to Captain James Norrington. The Turner family serves upon the Black Pearl. This is a spinoff of all three of my long fics, in which Jack and Will are cousins. _

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"Cousin Jack?" came the wispy voice of Little Will Turner, as he stood shivering upon the quarterdeck of the mighty Black Pearl, "Cousin Jack, I'm cold... why must we have a lesson in navigation tonight?"

Captain Jack Sparrow looked down upon his wee little five-year-old half first cousin, once removed... his kohl lined dark eyes crinkled around the corners only a tiny bit, as somehow he kept his lips from smiling at the very image of William Turner the Second in his first mate's son. The night was indeed, cold, as the mighty Black Pearl was skirting up the coast of the North American colonies in order to retrieve William, the first mate of the Black Pearl and the advisor to the captain of the ghost ship, the Flying Dutchman from his latest two week assignment aiding Captain James Norrington. It was autumn, and the air was quite chilly... the very waves as they split at the prow sounded crisper than normal.

"Little Whelpie," the captain replied, as the child sniffled, and crowded up closer to the captain's thin legs than Jack normally would care for, "... tonight is th' most opportune moment t' observe th' stars in th' clearest sky wot I have seen in a long time. We need t' take advantage of it in order fer ye t' really get a grasp on wot I am about t' explain t' ye..."

In a completely unexpected move, the slender captain turned the wheel over to Mr. Cotton, took the boy's hand, identical to his own, as cousins - a fact that had always fascinated the captain - and he led the child down the steps to the main deck, to a very large, circular coil of rope. The boy watched with a great deal of curiosity that quickly put the thought of how cold it was out of his mind, as the captain took off his long, wide cuffed coat, laid it aside, sat down in the coil of rope comfortably, and beckoned the child to join him. This was, indeed, an unprecedented event, as Jack was not one that liked anyone touching him much, even Little Will.

As the boy delightedly climbed into the captain's lap, Jack made him lay back against his thin chest, then reached over and pulled his coat over both of them. Grinning at each other, they were perfectly reclined in the rope coil to gaze at the sparkling and amazing mass of stars that crossed the breadth of the black sky.

"Did ye look a' th' chart o' th' constellations tha' I gave t' ye, lad? That chart is just fer you, an' a captain must always takes care of 'is charts. Can ye pick out any o' th' star pictures tha' were on th' chart?" Little Will could see the captain's breath as he spoke, but the child was already becoming warm under the cover of his cousin's coat. Looking at the sky, he chirped, "Aye, captain!" Jack smirked... fast learner, this one.

"I can see the Big Dipper, and the Little Dipper. The Big Dipper is also a part of Pegasus, and there is Orion, the Hunter..." The little one was pointing his finger in the proper places, and Jack could not help but feel a bit proud of himself for allowing the child to have a chart. The captain had a peculiar fondness for charts, having been a cartographer's apprentice in his youth, and being a pirate, he tended to also be a bit selfish.

"Aye, lad, you have yer father's eye fer navigatin'. Remember tha' th' North Star, at th' top corner o' th' Big Dipper, is constant... it never moves... all o' th' other stars in th' sky revolve around it, an' tha' is th' star tha' we use t' aim th' instruments o' navigation at. Sometime soon we shall let ye take a closer look a' th' instruments tha' sailors use, an' someday ye will be able t' find your way anywhere in th' world." Jack said, pulling the cork from a small bottle of rum that he always kept hidden about in the ropes. This was such a familiar action to the child that it did not faze him in the least... he could not begin to imagine Cousin Jack without a bottle of rum nearby. Jack took a small sip from the brown bottle.

Leaning his dark curly hair into Jack's whiskered, beaded chin, Little Will idly reached a hand up and placed it around Jack's neck, thinking. "Would the charts take me to World's End?"

Jack was quite startled by this question, so much so that his mustache twitched and he blinked. Turning his head ever so slightly as to look into the boy's soft brown eyes out of the corner of his own, he asked, "Wot makes ye wants t' go there?"

"I don't really. I have just heard so many stories about it from Mama and Papa that I wondered if it was a real place?"

Jack pondered this for a moment, and said, softly, "It's a real place, little laddie. You don't want to go there. It's as real as th' Flying Dutchman, or as Calypso, an' you know that they are both real, although many people don't. Put World's End out o' yer head, laddie." Jack's eyes clouded over a bit at the thought of this place that the boy was wishing to talk about on this crisp evening.

Little Will began running his hand through the captain's thick long dreadlocks, and continued as though he had not heard, "Mama says that World's End is where you proved that you are the greatest pirate that ever lived..."

"She says wot? Your mama? Izzy said that?" Jack was completely astonished. His friendship with William and Elizabeth was deep and unbreakable, but the relationship that Jack and Elizabeth had was always one of teasing and challenging, goodnatured insults and smiling threats. Compliments voiced between them were rare.

"Aye, Cousin Jack." the child continued, snuggling his face into the captain's neck and no longer looking at the sky. "Mama and Papa both say that you are the greatest pirate that ever lived... but that you have a good heart and an addled mind... and they get in the way of being a pirate, sometimes."

Jack Sparrow fell silent as he thought this over... it had been over five years since the events that had taken place at World's End, and they were events that none of this pirate family would ever forget, even if they wished that they could. It was then though, he thought, that he, William and Elizabeth had forged their friendship deeply, a constant, comforting thing that had been sorely missing in Jack's life, no matter how much he tried to deny it.

"Maybe I have a good heart, Little Whelpie, but don't tell anyone, savvy? I have a reputation to uphold..." the captain said, but it fell on sleeping ears. Little Will had fallen into slumber, lulled by the movement of the Pearl as she sailed through the water, and comforted by the beating of Jack's own heart against his back.

Jack looked at the sleeping child that he was holding, and thought, for the millionth time, how much he looked like his papa. And as he tucked the coat around himself and the boy just a bit more snugly, he leaned his head back and looked up at the stars, almost lulled into sleep, himself.

Chuckling, he thought of what an odd sight Elizabeth's eyes would see when she would seek them out after putting away the quartermaster's ledgers... a large coil of rope...a coat with two lanky, booted legs sticking out of the bottom and two heads pillowed against the coil at the top, one dark head wrapped with a red bandana, and the other, smaller one with a mass of brown curls, it's countenance pressed into the captain's jaw, eyes closed and sleeping.

As he stared up at the Milky Way, Jack thought about the North Star, and smiled. For years, that was the only constant thing in his life. Sleepily, he folded his thin arms protectively over Little Will Turner, and was secretly glad that there were many more constant stars in his life, now...

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End file.
